Enhance Your Career: 3 Simple Strategic Tips for Improving Your Career Plan

So you want to enhance your career. You are on a look out for what you can do to greatly impact yourcareer path. Are there simple strategies that you can implement that can immediately have a positive influence on your career? If there are, what are they?

The answer is – yes, there are simple strategies that you can do in order for you to enhance your career. This is a self-reflective strategy. I refer to it as simple because you alone can do this. For as long as you are truthful with yourself then this is as simple as it gets.

However, there is a word of caution. Nothing can enhance your career if you feel that there is not much you can improve on already. And while these strategies are simple, they can only be achieved IF you are willing to make that change.

1. Attitude 

When it comes to attitude I have always championed that you can define your attitude as one of pride, passion and belief. In everything that you do, do it with pride, passion and belief. And remember to back these up with skills and knowledge, direction and action.

Let’s take these further. To enhance your career, hardworking, humility and honesty is essential. Hardworking is fairly straightforward. It just means nothing comes easy. There are no rewards in the working world that comes without hard work. In fact, there is nothing in life that comes without hard work.

Humility comes with maturity. When you know you do not know enough then you begin to be a student again. You will want to enhance your skills and knowledge, which will in turn enhance your career.

Do you conduct your work honestly? How do you deal with your colleagues? Is it with integrity? Do you admit to your mistakes and not blame anyone for it? Honesty is not just about dealing with others. It is also being honest with yourself. Can you face your own ghost? Are you afraid to face your weaknesses without being defensive? Are you afraid to confront your lack of strengths? Being honest with yourself leads to an awareness. Step one to enhance your career is to define your attitude.

2. Awareness 

An awareness of your strengths and weaknesses is a necessary step if you want to enhance your career. This awareness is one that is self-reflective. One that makes you feel a sense of inadequacy. This sense of inadequacy creates an intrinsic need for improvement.

The energy generated from this awareness is a positive energy that propels you with the confidence to improve.

If you want to enhance your career, ask yourself - do you have this awareness? One that is clear about where you are, why are you there, where you can be and how do you get there? An awareness of the need to improve and an awareness of what you truly want is a simple strategy that can enhance your career. But how many of us can truly claim that we have this awareness? And how many can claim, with this awareness there is an action that works on it?

Many sit around all day lamenting why are they not progressing? They feel unappreciated.

Hard work is not being rewarded. Let me point out something. According to the Webster’s Universal College Dictionary - appreciate is to be fully conscious of; be aware of. If you want to be appreciated, start appreciating your strengths and weaknesses. Then only can you begin to talk about how to enhance your career.

3. Action 

So, you have a positive attitude and a positive awareness of yourself. But do you act upon them? If you do act upon them, do you do it at a pace that is right for you? Knowing the pace that is right for you is all about self-awareness.

There are two parts to this action, one is patience and the other persistence. Patience is about proceeding calmly or moving slowly with zero anticipation. No plans to enhance your career can be successful without solid action from your end. And solid action from your end means hard work.

Which is the other part of action, one that is persistent. One that is doing incessantly or progresses with dogged determination.

As you can see these are truly 3 simple strategic tips you can implement immediately that can positivelyenhance your career. Each is inter-related to another and feeds upon each other. If you can get it smoothly into motion there is no telling how far you can go.

The relevant link is : http://www.career-success-for-newbies.com/enhance-your-career.html

Simple Career tips :

1. Make Career Planning an Annual Event

2. Never Stop Learning (Life-long learning is your keyword.)

3. Ask, Listen and Learn (A good listener can learn a lot.)

4. Prepare Yourself (Your dream might show up tomorrow. Be prepared.)

5. Make Note of Your Past Accomplishments

Can Testing guarantee Defect Free Delivery?

I am sending some answers which I had received from my friends.

Kindly have a look and if any more comments in addition then do let me

know...

1.     Based on the test cases and scenarios covered (passed) we can say or we can

guarantee that defect would not be there while performing the following

operations.

But there are hundreds and thousands of other scenarios which are not

covered in the test case. So we cannot say that a Testing guarantee Defect

Free Delivery. It is just a method of find out, whether in the test cases

written, we had defects.

2.     *Testing can't guarantee you a defect free Delivery. But with the help of

testing you can improve quality of your software. *

*If you find a bug at delivery phase (or any Later Phase). then the cost of

fixing that bug is very high as compare to cost of fixing same bug at any

previous stage (i.e. designing phase or coding phase). The main mission of

testing is to find Bug. In this way testing will help you to find bug in

early stages of development cycle, which in turn improve quality of

software and also decreases the chances of failure of that software in Real

world. *

* *

*With the help of testing you can't guarantee a defect free Delivery but you

can guarantee a more stable* product.*

*More Stable: Less Bugs, Risk of failure is nearly Zero, Good performance,.*

3.     Positive:

If testing is done keeping high risk areas in my mind and by proper

planning and analysis then we can ensure that delivery is defect free.

Negative:

Exhaustive testing is not possible because a system can take infinite

number of possible inputs combinations. So, we can ensure that after the

testing our product is defect free.

4.     Testing is an never ending process and can never confirm defect free

delivery, unless the object in test is too simple. The more you dig, the more

you get.

According to me, testing can just give confidence to the customer/vendor

by improving the product in test to an acceptable level of quality.

'Acceptable level' again depends on the criticality of the object in test.

5.     Yes testing *can *guarantee delivery of defect free software provided ALL

THE DEFECTs have been detected and revealed by testing, fixed by

Developers AND ALL retested by testers again. However, this is only

possible when Exhaustive testing is carried out, which is not possible

to carry out in real life scenarios. Because it involves huge costs and

large time scales in performing exhaustive testing which is not practically

possible and not feasible in real scenarios.

6.     No Testing Can never guarantee defect free delivery.

Testing is only a risk reduction process but not risk

removal process. Therefore, the number of defects in the software or

system can be reduced but cannot be removed totally at any point of time.

7.     Testing cannot give guarantee of defect free delivery, because 100 %

testing is not possible, there could be defect in any phase. Defect show the presence of defect not show the defects are present.

8.     Testing wouldn't guarantee for Defect Free Delivery, but of course will

definitely improve the confidence of the customer that he would get right product in a right way.

Highest ideals we need to practice in our daily life

The mind can act as a bridge leading man from the tangible to the intangible, from the personal to the impersonal. Cleanse the mind and mould it into an instrument for loving thoughts, for expansive ideas. Cleanse the tongue and use it for fostering fearlessness and friendship. Cleanse the hands; let them desist from injury and violence. Let them help and lead, heal and guide. This is the highest spiritual practice.

Estimating Defects by Function Point

There is a strong relationship between the number of test cases and the number of function points. As expected there is a strong relationship between the number of defects and the number of test cases and number of function points.

The number of acceptance test cases can be estimated by multiplying the number of function points by 1.2. Like function points, acceptance test cases should be independent of technology and implementation techniques.
For example, if a software project was 100 function points the estimated number of test cases would be 120. To estimate the number of potential defects is more involved.
Estimating Defects
Intuitively the number of maximum potential defects is equal to the number of acceptance test cases which is 1.2 x Function Points.

Preventing, Discovering and Removing Defects
To reduce the number of defects delivered with a software project an organization can engage in a variety of activities. While defect prevention is much more effective and efficient in reducing the number of defects, most organization conduct defect discovery and removal. Discovering and removing defects is an expensive and inefficient process. It is much more efficient for an organization to conduct activities that prevent defects.
Defect Removal Efficiency

If an organization has no defect prevention methods in place then they are totally reliant on defect removal efficiency.

1. Requirements Reviews up to 15% removal of potential defects
2. Design Reviews up to 30% removal of potential defects
3. Code Reviews up to 20% removal of potential defects
4. Formal Testing up to 25% removal of potential defects

In other words, if your organization is great at defect removal the maximum percentage of defects your organization can expect to remove is 90%. If a software project is 100 function points, the total number of maximum (or potential) defects could be 120. If you were perfect at defect removal your project would still have up to 12 defects after all your defect discovery and removal efforts. The far majority of organization would receive a B (medium) or even a D (poor) at defect removal efficiency.

Activity	Perfect	Medium	Poor
Requirements Reviews	15%	5%	0%
Design Reviews	30%	15%	0%
Code Reviews	20%	10%	0%
Formal Testing	25%	15%	15%
Total Percentage Removed	90%	45%	15%

Defect Discovery and Removal

Size in Function Points		Totals Defects Remaining
	Max Defects	Perfect	Medium	Poor
100	120	12	66	102
200	240	24	132	204
500	600	60	330	510
1,000	1,200	120	660	1,020
2,500	3,000	300	1,650	2,550
5,000	6,000	600	3,300	5,100
10,000	12,000	1,200	6,600	10,200
20,000	24,000	2,000	13,200	20,400

An organization with a project of 2,500 function points and was about medium at defect discovery and removal would have 1,650 defects remaining after all defect removal and discovery activities. The calculation is 2,500 x 1.2 = 3,000 potential defects. The organization would be able to remove about 45% of the defects or 1,350 defects. The total potential defects (3,000) less the removed defects (1,350) equals the remaining defects of 1,650.
Defect Prevention

If an organization concentrates on defect prevention (instead of defect detection) then the number of defects inserted or created is much less. The amount of time and effort required to discover and remove this defects is much less also.
1. Roles and Responsibilities Clearly Defined up to 15% reduction in number of defects created
2. Formalized Procedures up to 25% reduction in number of defects created
3. Repeatable Processes up to 35% reduction in number of defects created
4. Controls and Measures in place up to 30% reduction in number of defects created
Imagine an organization with items 1 and 2 in place. A project with 100 function points would have a potential of 120 defects, but since they have preventative measures in place, they can reduce the number of potential defects by 48 (40% = 25% + 15%). That makes the potential number of defects 72 compared to 120 with no preventative efforts. Assuming that an organization was medium at defect discovery and removal they could remove 45% of the remaining defects or have 40 remaining when the project rolled to production.

Defect Removal	Max Defects	Prevention	Medium
100	120	72	40
200	240	144	79
500	600	360	198
1,000	1,200	720	396
2,500	3,000	1,800	990
5,000	6,000	3,600	1,980
10,000	12,000	7,200	3,960
20,000	24,000	14,400	7,920

The above table represents the number of defects that an organization that does items 1 and 2 above and is medium at discovery and removal.
The problem for estimating defects is multidimensional. First the total number of defects must be estimated. Second the impact of defect prevention needs to be understood and the estimated number of defects adjusted. Third an assessment needs to be done to understand how many defects can be discovered and removed by an organization.
Clearly, the fewer number of defects that an organization must discover and remove the better. The way this is accomplished is by better process, a more stable organization and repeatable processes. The focus of software organizations needs to be on defect prevention instead of defect detection.